Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / MAYHEM IN THE MORGUE | Neighbors

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MAYHEM IN THE MORGUE | Neighbors · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Once again, this episode has discussions of deaths of individuals.
0:06
Speaker 1: If this sort of thing upsets you, this is again
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Speaker 1: not the episode for you. Welcome to Mayhem the More
0:15
Speaker 1: with their host Doctor Kidder Crowns. Today's episode Neighbors neighbors.
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Speaker 1: Unless you own a private island, you can't escape them.
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Speaker 1: Some are good, some are bad, and some you never know.
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Speaker 1: But the really bad ones are the ones you really remember. Today,
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Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about a couple of problematic neighbors
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Speaker 1: that I have had over the years. When I was
0:44
Speaker 1: in medical school, I lived in an apartment complex on
0:47
Speaker 1: Rainbow Boulevard in Kansas City, Kansas. It was near some
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Speaker 1: train tracks in a highway. The apartments were small, reasonably priced,
0:57
Speaker 1: and were a few blocks away from the school, and
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Speaker 1: most of the people who lived there were actually medical students.
1:03
Speaker 1: I walked from these apartments every day to go to class,
1:06
Speaker 1: and they were incredibly convenient. I can still remember my
1:10
Speaker 1: apartment number. It was five fourteen. It was in the
1:13
Speaker 1: back corner of one section. I shared a wall with
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Speaker 1: one person, and I had a neighbor across from me
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Speaker 1: and one above me. Behind my apartment was a tree
1:22
Speaker 1: covered hill that blocked out the sun, so that wasn't
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Speaker 1: really a neighbor in West you count the feral cats
1:28
Speaker 1: and raccoons. In the years that I lived there, my
1:31
Speaker 1: neighbor across from me was nonexistent. I saw her only once.
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Speaker 1: She too was a medical student, but a little further
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Speaker 1: along than me. She was a great neighbor, never there,
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Speaker 1: kept to herself when she was there, she was always quiet.
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Speaker 1: During my first semester of school, my upstairs neighbor was
1:50
Speaker 1: also very quiet. He was in his final year of
1:53
Speaker 1: school and he was never there as well, and I
1:55
Speaker 1: never heard him except maybe once or twice. And because
1:59
Speaker 1: my apartment and was so quiet, I studied there a lot.
2:03
Speaker 1: It was convenient. I could get snacks, I could nap
2:06
Speaker 1: and occasionally watch TV, and I developed quite a routine.
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Speaker 1: I went home for Christmas that year, and when I returned,
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Speaker 1: I had a new upstairs neighbor. I still remember his name,
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Speaker 1: but because he isn't dead, maybe I'll refer to him
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Speaker 1: as Lane. Laine and I started medical school together. My
2:27
Speaker 1: class size was one hundred and seventy five students, which
2:30
Speaker 1: is a big group of people, and he were always busy,
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Speaker 1: and due to that I knew who he was, but
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Speaker 1: I didn't know him, and his last name was also
2:39
Speaker 1: further down the alphabet than mine, and that meant we
2:42
Speaker 1: had no interaction in labs or clinical rotations. Laine wasn't
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Speaker 1: always in his apartment, but when he was, Laine liked
2:50
Speaker 1: to get drunk, and when he was drunk, he liked
2:53
Speaker 1: to get loud, and he liked to do this at
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Speaker 1: all hours of the day. I remember one time at
2:59
Speaker 1: two am, he sat on his back porch blowing a
3:02
Speaker 1: Marty Gras horn for over an hour. Laine also liked
3:05
Speaker 1: to entertain strippers from a local strip club called Bazookahs
3:09
Speaker 1: at his apartment. Sometimes he would be having extracurricular activities
3:13
Speaker 1: with them late at night, and it would also get
3:15
Speaker 1: awful loud. But the most annoying thing that he did
3:18
Speaker 1: was on the morning of our examinations, and that activity
3:22
Speaker 1: was he would play the song Rooster by Alison Chains.
3:25
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with Alison Chains, they are a
3:28
Speaker 1: heavy metal band that formed in Seattle in nineteen eighty
3:31
Speaker 1: seven and they're always mixed in with the grunge musical
3:34
Speaker 1: scene of the nineteen nineties. If you're not familiar with
3:37
Speaker 1: the song Rooster, It's a song about a soldier in
3:39
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War, and it is written by one of
3:42
Speaker 1: the members of the band by the name of Jerry Cantrell.
3:44
Speaker 1: It's a very loud, guitar and drum driven song, and
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Speaker 1: at seven am on every test day it would start,
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Speaker 1: like clockwork. I would be sitting eating my cheerios next
3:54
Speaker 1: to my kitchen sink, reading my panic notes that I
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Speaker 1: put together the night before to do some last minutes,
4:00
Speaker 1: and I would hear the opening guitar riff to the song,
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Speaker 1: followed by the lyric ain't found a way to kill
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Speaker 1: him yet, and a few seconds later the chorus, here
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Speaker 1: they come to snuff the rooster. You know he ain't
4:11
Speaker 1: gonna die, And all the while Laine was screaming at
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Speaker 1: the top of his voice along with the song. It
4:16
Speaker 1: was obviously his pretest ritual, and we all have those.
4:20
Speaker 1: I always liked to wear a particular shirt, but for me,
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Speaker 1: his was really annoying. Before that time, I thought Allison
4:27
Speaker 1: Chains were a decent band, But after this sonic torture
4:30
Speaker 1: that I endured during this time period, I've never been
4:33
Speaker 1: able to listen to them again. It was incredibly frustrating
4:36
Speaker 1: because he was so noisy and loud and irritating, often
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Speaker 1: at weird and bizarre times. I just started avoiding my apartment.
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Speaker 1: I would try to study at school to just not
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Speaker 1: listen to him, but that really wasn't working for me
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Speaker 1: because I had a routine before he got there, and
4:52
Speaker 1: studying at school also had its problems as well. It
4:55
Speaker 1: wasn't always convenient. I didn't have food there and napping
4:58
Speaker 1: in the study cubicles. This wasn't as comfortable. I had
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Speaker 1: to do something so I could get back to my routine.
5:04
Speaker 1: I decided I would try talking to him about the noise.
5:07
Speaker 1: I tried several times, and his response always was a
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Speaker 1: pleasant f off ah, yes, f off, a truly educated response.
5:16
Speaker 1: I complained to the apartment manager, Polly, but there was
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Speaker 1: only so much she could do and she wasn't always there. Finally,
5:23
Speaker 1: I took matters into my own hands. I know this
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Speaker 1: is the point in a true crime story where someone
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Speaker 1: ends up dead, dismembered, and disposed of in a refrigerator,
5:33
Speaker 1: but instead of that option, I went with option B,
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Speaker 1: and that was I initially pounded on the ceiling with
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Speaker 1: the handle of my broom. This was ineffective because it
5:43
Speaker 1: was often actually not loud enough for him to notice,
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Speaker 1: and when he did, he would either turn up the
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Speaker 1: noise or pound on his floor back. I even put
5:50
Speaker 1: a couple of holes in my ceiling pounding so hard,
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Speaker 1: and when my dad came up to visit, he had
5:55
Speaker 1: to help me patch them up. After the pounding was unsuccessful.
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Speaker 1: I got creative. The apartments we were living in had
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Speaker 1: the same footprint, so I pretty much knew the layout
6:04
Speaker 1: of his I knew where his bed was, where his
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Speaker 1: television was, etc. Etc. I found his phone number in
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Speaker 1: the student directory, and this is, of course a time
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Speaker 1: before cell phones and caller ID. It was good old
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Speaker 1: fashioned land lines. I could track where he was in
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Speaker 1: his apartment based on his thunderous footsteps, and of course
6:23
Speaker 1: I knew the location of his phone. It was the
6:26
Speaker 1: same spot as mine, because all the phone jacks were
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Speaker 1: in the same place. My diabolical plan was when he
6:32
Speaker 1: got really loud, I waited until he was at the
6:34
Speaker 1: farthest point from his phone in his apartment, and I
6:37
Speaker 1: would call and I could hear his phone ringing, his
6:41
Speaker 1: music would turn off, or whatever activity he was participating
6:44
Speaker 1: in would cease, and he would walk across the floor thump, thump, thump,
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Speaker 1: and when his footsteps would get to his phone, click,
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Speaker 1: I'd hang up. I could hear him pick up the
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Speaker 1: phone and say hello, Hello, and then hang up frustrated.
6:59
Speaker 1: The footsteps would move away from the phone, heading back
7:02
Speaker 1: to his noisy activity, and I would call again. His
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Speaker 1: phone would begin ringing, and he would run over to
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Speaker 1: the phone, and just before he'd reach it again, click,
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Speaker 1: I would hang up and sometimes sen in my apartment
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Speaker 1: and laugh a little bit. After a few times, this
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Speaker 1: would usually agitate him and cause him to leave his
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Speaker 1: apartment in frustration, and for a little while the noise
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Speaker 1: would be completely gone and I could study until he
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Speaker 1: returned to start to cycle over. There was one occasion
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Speaker 1: he even got so frustrated that he threw his phone
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Speaker 1: across his apartment, screaming about why did his phone keep ringing?
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Speaker 1: And why did that person keep hanging up? Success was achieved.
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Speaker 1: Were my tactics wrong? Were they a little juvenile? Yes?
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Speaker 1: Yes they were, but it was down to him or
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Speaker 1: me at that point, and I was going to win.
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Speaker 1: We kept this game up for most of the semester.
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Speaker 1: He never took his phone off the hook, which is
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Speaker 1: what I would have done if the phone kept ringing
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Speaker 1: and people kept hanging up, But he didn't do it
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Speaker 1: for whatever reason, and I kept calling and he would
8:01
Speaker 1: leave longer and longer, giving me longer periods of quiet.
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Speaker 1: But the one thing is I could never stop the
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Speaker 1: rooster from arriving on Testay. I just learned to adapt
8:12
Speaker 1: and be gone before the music started. Eventually, my dad
8:16
Speaker 1: came up with a very reasonable solution. One time when
8:19
Speaker 1: he was coming up to visit me, he brought with
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Speaker 1: him some gun range earmuffs. He told me, this will
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Speaker 1: probably take some of the edge off that noise, and
8:27
Speaker 1: it did. I started wearing them and it was a
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Speaker 1: little easier to deal with Lane's rambunctiousness. And things continued
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Speaker 1: on for a while. But then there was a turning
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Speaker 1: point for Lane in school, and it had nothing to
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Speaker 1: do with me and my phone calls. It was during
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Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety three national championship game for the NC
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Speaker 1: DOUBLEA tournament in basketball, or March Madness. Kansas University was
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Speaker 1: playing the North Carolina tar Heels and the winner would
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Speaker 1: be crowned the NC DOUBLEA champion the next day, though
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Speaker 1: after the game, we were scheduled to have several very tests,
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Speaker 1: but the professor said if Kansas University won, the tests
9:05
Speaker 1: would be postponed for a few days, but if they lost,
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Speaker 1: the tests would proceed as normal. All my classmates were
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Speaker 1: a buzz with Oh, if they win, we don't have
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Speaker 1: to take the test for another few days and we'll
9:17
Speaker 1: have more time to study. Some are like, oh, forget it,
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Speaker 1: I'm going to study anyway. For me, I was really
9:23
Speaker 1: hopeful that KU would win, and that night I had
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Speaker 1: the game on my television, but I didn't have the
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Speaker 1: sound on because Lane's television was so loud I could
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Speaker 1: hear the announcers through my ceiling. I was half heartily
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Speaker 1: studying and watching the game, but by halftime it wasn't
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Speaker 1: looking good. I knew that a true fan would not
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Speaker 1: have given up and would have had faith that KU
9:44
Speaker 1: would have won. But this was medical school, after all,
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Speaker 1: and I couldn't fail a test. I turned off my TV,
9:50
Speaker 1: slipped on my shooting range earmuffs, and started studying. After
9:54
Speaker 1: about an hour or so, there was a sudden boom.
9:57
Speaker 1: My overhead light shook and dust fell from the ceiling
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Speaker 1: onto my papers. I took my earmuffs off to hear
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Speaker 1: what was going on. I could hear Lane screaming and
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Speaker 1: destroying his TV and by the sounds of it his apartment.
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Speaker 1: Kansas University had lost and the tests were going to happen,
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Speaker 1: and Lane was not happy at all. The next morning,
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Speaker 1: test day, I left before the rooster began. I don't
10:21
Speaker 1: know how he did on the tests, but I know
10:24
Speaker 1: after that he started to drink and yell more and more,
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Speaker 1: and there were often loud, angry arguments with his stripper friends.
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Speaker 1: And that phone, that phone just wouldn't stop effing ringing.
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Speaker 1: What the hell? The semester was ending and we rolled
10:39
Speaker 1: into finals. On the day final started, I had shown
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Speaker 1: up to school to take the first of several tests
10:47
Speaker 1: of that day, and I heard some people talking that
10:51
Speaker 1: Lane had been pepper sprayed the night before the tests
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Speaker 1: by one of his girlfriends from the strip club. He
10:57
Speaker 1: had run out of his apartment and stuck his face
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Speaker 1: in the bird bath by the pool at the apartment complex.
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Speaker 1: And when I heard that, it explained the screaming that
11:05
Speaker 1: it had woken me up at three am that morning.
11:08
Speaker 1: Eventually we finished finals, I packed up and I went
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Speaker 1: home for my short summer break. I kept my apartment
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Speaker 1: over the summer, because my break wasn't very long. And
11:17
Speaker 1: when I came back, my neighbor across the way was
11:20
Speaker 1: again still there, still quiet, still non existent, but Lane
11:25
Speaker 1: was suddenly incredibly quiet. Did something happen over the summer?
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Speaker 1: Did he change his ways? I went to class that
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Speaker 1: first week and I didn't see him around, and I
11:35
Speaker 1: asked one of the other medical students that knew everybody's business,
11:38
Speaker 1: because there's always one of those in every class, what
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Speaker 1: happened to Lane? And they said, well, no one really knows.
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Speaker 1: He just never came back. Later that week, I saw
11:48
Speaker 1: my apartment manager and I asked her, Hey, what happened
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Speaker 1: to the guy who lived above me? And she said
11:54
Speaker 1: that she didn't know. He just never came back. They
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Speaker 1: couldn't find him. They called the list of phone numbers,
11:59
Speaker 1: no one ann and when his lease ran out, they
12:02
Speaker 1: entered into his apartment and it appeared he just picked
12:05
Speaker 1: up all of his stuff and left. And there was
12:07
Speaker 1: trash everywhere and damage to the apartment, and there was
12:10
Speaker 1: a phone. The base had been smashed pieces, and the
12:14
Speaker 1: receiver was broken in half, and the parts were all
12:17
Speaker 1: over the place. When I heard this, I smiled, and
12:20
Speaker 1: I thought to myself victory. The apartment manager went on
12:24
Speaker 1: and said he won't be getting his deposit back if
12:27
Speaker 1: he ever shows up again. I did find out that
12:30
Speaker 1: Lane's grades had been on the decline most of the semester,
12:33
Speaker 1: and he actually never showed up for the second half
12:36
Speaker 1: of finals. I guess the mixture of medical school and
12:40
Speaker 1: strippers was just a recipe for disaster. I never heard
12:43
Speaker 1: of him again, and I don't know what happened to him.
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Speaker 1: He just disappeared. One thing is, though, every time I
12:50
Speaker 1: hear the opening to Rooster by Alison Chains, I changed
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Speaker 1: the channel and I think of him, and it reminds
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Speaker 1: me of how irritating it was to live under him
13:00
Speaker 1: that time period. Wow Wow. After I finished medical school,
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Speaker 1: I moved to Memphis, Tennessee for residency. I had nice
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Speaker 1: neighbors there for the entire time, and then we moved
13:14
Speaker 1: from Tennessee to Illinois, specifically the western suburbs of Chicago,
13:19
Speaker 1: and there we had wonderful neighbors. And we moved from
13:22
Speaker 1: there to Texas, and my new neighbor in Texas was
13:26
Speaker 1: my most unpleasant neighbor of all. At my new home
13:29
Speaker 1: in Texas, the backyard opened up into a field. The
13:32
Speaker 1: one side of the house face a roadway with the
13:35
Speaker 1: neighbor across the street, and the other side faced an
13:39
Speaker 1: empty lot. I really only had the one neighbor on
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Speaker 1: one side, and on the day I moved in, I
13:46
Speaker 1: was talking to the builder when my new neighbor walked up.
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Speaker 1: He was kind of a short, elderly man with gray
13:52
Speaker 1: white hair. He was wearing a white T shirt, suspenders,
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Speaker 1: and blue jeans. The builder said, hey, Doc, this is
13:58
Speaker 1: your new neighbor. And the old man turned to me
14:01
Speaker 1: and he said, so, I hear tell you're a doctor.
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Speaker 1: Well they call me Doc. And I said to him, well,
14:08
Speaker 1: nice to meet you, sir. That's interesting. And they call
14:11
Speaker 1: me Kendall. And from that moment on, that is how
14:14
Speaker 1: our relationship was. He was unpleasant and sometimes aggressive, trying
14:18
Speaker 1: to always tell Beth or me how to handle our
14:21
Speaker 1: house or our yard or things like that. He would
14:24
Speaker 1: tell us we couldn't plant trees, have a fence. He
14:27
Speaker 1: was always frustrated when we wouldn't listen to him and
14:29
Speaker 1: we didn't get his way. He would try to cite
14:32
Speaker 1: his own obtuse version of the HOA rules, and then
14:36
Speaker 1: if he didn't get his way, he would write up
14:38
Speaker 1: a lengthy complaint and turn them into the HOA to
14:40
Speaker 1: try and get us in trouble. The HOA would come
14:43
Speaker 1: by and investigate, and they never found that we had
14:46
Speaker 1: any real violations. One example of this is we had
14:49
Speaker 1: a shed built that was one inch too close to
14:52
Speaker 1: the property line based on the HOA rules, and he
14:55
Speaker 1: measured this with a tape measure and filed an aggressive
14:58
Speaker 1: complaint about our chef wanting it destroyed probably burned. The
15:03
Speaker 1: HOA looked at it and said the one inch discrepancy
15:06
Speaker 1: really wasn't that important. Plus the shed was on the
15:09
Speaker 1: other side of our fence and really didn't affect his
15:12
Speaker 1: property at all, and they told him he just needed
15:15
Speaker 1: to calm down, which made him really mad. The other
15:19
Speaker 1: thing he used to do was have loud karaoke parties
15:23
Speaker 1: late at night. And like I said, he was an
15:25
Speaker 1: old man. He was in his late sixties early seventies,
15:29
Speaker 1: and he and his friends would become intoxicated and sing
15:32
Speaker 1: songs by the Eagles, Bob Seeger and Cher and carry
15:36
Speaker 1: on like they were college kids until well past midnight.
15:40
Speaker 1: And let's just say he couldn't sing, nor could his friends.
15:43
Speaker 1: And I again added a couple more songs to my
15:46
Speaker 1: list of songs that they can't stand when they come
15:48
Speaker 1: on the radio, which includes Desperado and Believe. This continued
15:53
Speaker 1: on for quite a while. During this time, I had
15:57
Speaker 1: a garden in my backyard, and one time I was
15:59
Speaker 1: out there watering my tomatoes. It was a bright summer day.
16:03
Speaker 1: The sun was shining and it was warm outside. There
16:06
Speaker 1: was a dove quietly cooing on the edge of my fence.
16:09
Speaker 1: I was focusing on the status of my plants. There
16:12
Speaker 1: were weeds in the garden and some of the tomatoes
16:14
Speaker 1: were starting to ripen. When out of the blue, there
16:17
Speaker 1: was this pop, and the cooing dove fell dead at
16:20
Speaker 1: my feet. Then pop, one of my tomatoes exploded. I
16:24
Speaker 1: looked up and I could see my neighbor in his
16:25
Speaker 1: boxers and white tshirt and bathrobe, pointing a gun at
16:28
Speaker 1: me and taking aim. I dropped my watering can and
16:32
Speaker 1: I ran zigzagging in the yard. I heard another pop
16:35
Speaker 1: while I was running, but I don't know where that
16:36
Speaker 1: one went. When I got in the house, I told
16:39
Speaker 1: Beth that the neighbor was shooting at me. She called
16:41
Speaker 1: nine one one, and the Sheriff's office responded but we
16:44
Speaker 1: lived out in the country, so it took them probably
16:47
Speaker 1: about twenty minutes for them to get there. During that time,
16:50
Speaker 1: I looked outside and noticed he was gone. I went
16:53
Speaker 1: out there and picked up the dead bird. I looked
16:55
Speaker 1: at the poor dead dove. He was bleeding from his chest,
16:58
Speaker 1: and I wanted to find out why he died. I
17:00
Speaker 1: cleaned the feathers off the wounds and found an entrance
17:04
Speaker 1: an exit wound consisted of a gun shot. They weren't
17:07
Speaker 1: very big, so whatever the gun was, it didn't have
17:09
Speaker 1: a lot of power or kinetic energy. Plus the bird
17:13
Speaker 1: was still intact, so if it had been a high
17:15
Speaker 1: velocity rifle, the bird would have exploded. When the sheriff's
17:19
Speaker 1: officer arrived, I went out to the driveway and met
17:22
Speaker 1: her with the dead bird in my hand. I told
17:24
Speaker 1: her what had occurred, and then I showed her the
17:26
Speaker 1: dead bird and began showing her the entrance and exit wounds,
17:30
Speaker 1: and I started telling her my theory about the gun.
17:33
Speaker 1: The officer looked at me perplexed, and she said, who
17:36
Speaker 1: are you. Where did you get this bird from? Again?
17:39
Speaker 1: And I said to her, well, actually, I'm one of
17:41
Speaker 1: the medical examiners of this County, and this is the
17:44
Speaker 1: bird that was shot by my neighbor on my fence,
17:46
Speaker 1: right next to me when I was watering my tomatoes.
17:49
Speaker 1: The sheriff's officer said, well, okay, I don't need to
17:52
Speaker 1: see the dead bird, but you can show me where
17:54
Speaker 1: this incident occurred. And I put the bird down and
17:57
Speaker 1: we walked into the back yard where my garden was.
18:00
Speaker 1: I was pointing out to her where I was standing
18:02
Speaker 1: when the bird died, and she said, where was the
18:05
Speaker 1: shooter at I turned and I pointed at the door
18:08
Speaker 1: my neighbor had shot from. And when I did that,
18:10
Speaker 1: I saw him standing on his deck eavesdropping on what
18:13
Speaker 1: I was saying to the sheriff's officer. I said to her, well,
18:17
Speaker 1: that's him right there. He's the one that shot at me.
18:19
Speaker 1: And the sheriff's officer said, sir, I'd like to speak
18:22
Speaker 1: to you. His eyes got real wide and he took
18:25
Speaker 1: off running, and the sheriff's officer started yelling, excuse me, sir,
18:28
Speaker 1: I need to speak to you. And he kept running
18:30
Speaker 1: and he ran to his driveway and he got in
18:32
Speaker 1: his golf cart and began driving away at the golf
18:35
Speaker 1: cart's top speed, which wasn't very fast. The sheriff's officer
18:40
Speaker 1: ran and got into her cruiser and chased after him
18:42
Speaker 1: down the road, and she cut him off with the
18:44
Speaker 1: cruiser and got out, saying, sir, I need to speak
18:47
Speaker 1: to you. It was quite the spectacle, but I didn't
18:50
Speaker 1: catch what happened next because I went in the house.
18:53
Speaker 1: And when she got done with the interview of him,
18:55
Speaker 1: she later called me and told me what the results
18:57
Speaker 1: of her interview had found. She said that he claimed
19:00
Speaker 1: to be an air force sniper, which didn't make a
19:03
Speaker 1: lot of sense. He claimed that he knew his way
19:05
Speaker 1: around guns, and he was using a co two charge
19:08
Speaker 1: air rifle and shooting pellets and would never have shot
19:12
Speaker 1: at me intentionally. But he closed with because if he
19:16
Speaker 1: wanted to shoot me, he could have done it and
19:19
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have missed, because you know, he was a sniper.
19:23
Speaker 1: And he told her his true intentions were to just
19:25
Speaker 1: get rid of the doves because he found their cooing
19:28
Speaker 1: to be irritating and he didn't like birds, and the
19:32
Speaker 1: birds needed to go. And she told him what he
19:35
Speaker 1: had done constituted a reckless act and he could be
19:38
Speaker 1: charged with reckless endangerment, and she asked me what I
19:42
Speaker 1: wanted to do and if I wanted to pursue charges,
19:46
Speaker 1: and I told her I didn't want to pursue charges
19:48
Speaker 1: as long as he stopped with the shooting of his
19:51
Speaker 1: air rifle in my general direction or towards my yard,
19:54
Speaker 1: because at that time I had a lot of small
19:56
Speaker 1: children who loved to play outside in the yard most
19:59
Speaker 1: of the day, and I didn't want them to get
20:01
Speaker 1: hurt because I knew that air rifles were dangerous and
20:05
Speaker 1: just one well placed pellet or bebie could easily enter
20:08
Speaker 1: your body and kill you. Because I had had cases
20:11
Speaker 1: like that, we didn't press charges. He stopped shooting his
20:15
Speaker 1: air rifle in my general direction, and we continued on
20:18
Speaker 1: with our armed truce. He'd occasionally called the HOA and
20:22
Speaker 1: complained about us, and it went on and on like
20:24
Speaker 1: that for a few more years, just like with Lane, though,
20:29
Speaker 1: a turning point came. It was in late March and
20:32
Speaker 1: I was set to go back to testify in Chicago
20:35
Speaker 1: on a case. The case was yet another gangland shooting,
20:39
Speaker 1: lots of bullets, lots of wounds, and one very dead
20:42
Speaker 1: gang member, and I had to fly back on a Sunday.
20:46
Speaker 1: Bethel drove me to the airport, and I flew out
20:49
Speaker 1: that afternoon and was in Chicago by that evening. The
20:54
Speaker 1: next morning, I got up and took a cab to
20:56
Speaker 1: the courthouse, and when I got there, I had some
21:00
Speaker 1: time to kill, so I called Beth to see how
21:03
Speaker 1: she was doing. When she answered, she told me something
21:07
Speaker 1: weird had occurred. When she was taking the kids to
21:09
Speaker 1: school that morning. The neighbor was standing at the end
21:13
Speaker 1: of our driveway. She was wearing a rumpled overcoat and
21:16
Speaker 1: her house slippers. Her hair was crazy, and she had
21:20
Speaker 1: this wild look on her face. She was shaking her
21:23
Speaker 1: fist and screaming and waving a white towel that was
21:26
Speaker 1: stained red aggressively back and forth. Beth was attempting to
21:31
Speaker 1: back out of the driveway with our kids in the van,
21:34
Speaker 1: and one of our children said to her, why is
21:37
Speaker 1: the neighbor acting so weird? And Beth said, I don't know,
21:41
Speaker 1: but we're just going to get around her, and she
21:43
Speaker 1: maneuvered the van and got around her and drove away
21:46
Speaker 1: while the neighbor continued to scream and shake her fist
21:49
Speaker 1: at the car. Beth told me all of this, and
21:52
Speaker 1: I said to her, that's incredibly odd. That doesn't even
21:56
Speaker 1: make sense. I wonder what they're up to now. I
22:00
Speaker 1: will be getting a call from the HOA sometime this week.
22:04
Speaker 1: Beth agreed, but she said this time it was really different,
22:07
Speaker 1: and it was exceptionally odd. I went on to testify
22:11
Speaker 1: in the case later that day, and after I got done,
22:14
Speaker 1: I was driven to the airport, bordered a plane of
22:16
Speaker 1: O'Hare and flew home. The next morning, I got up
22:20
Speaker 1: and went to work like I always did. Arrived around
22:23
Speaker 1: six am and I cut through the death investigator's office
22:27
Speaker 1: on my way to my office. One of the death
22:29
Speaker 1: investigators saw me and she said, Hey, we think we
22:32
Speaker 1: got your neighbor in here late Sunday night. And I
22:35
Speaker 1: said to her, are you kidding me? And she pulled
22:38
Speaker 1: up the file and the pictures on her computer and
22:40
Speaker 1: showed them to me, and sure enough, it was my
22:43
Speaker 1: neighbor wearing the same white tshirt, same suspenders, and blue
22:47
Speaker 1: denim pants that he was wearing when I met him
22:49
Speaker 1: for that first time all those years ago. The only
22:52
Speaker 1: difference was he was laying there dead on an autopsy table.
22:56
Speaker 1: I asked her what had happened to him, and she
22:59
Speaker 1: told me the case was pending. He had evidently gotten
23:02
Speaker 1: in his wife's car, driven to the end of the street,
23:05
Speaker 1: pulled up in the driveway of another person's house, which
23:08
Speaker 1: was for sale, got out of his car, walked along
23:11
Speaker 1: the driveway into the yard, and that's where he was
23:14
Speaker 1: found dead with two separate gunshot wounds of entrance to
23:18
Speaker 1: his head. The gun was at the scene, which made
23:21
Speaker 1: it seem like it was a suicide, but there were
23:23
Speaker 1: other circumstances that called the manner of death into question,
23:27
Speaker 1: and these were when the sheriffs arrived at the scene.
23:29
Speaker 1: His wife was hysterical and screaming, and she had the
23:32
Speaker 1: hoa president and her husband sitting in her house with her.
23:36
Speaker 1: She was carrying on and on, moaning and incredibly enraged,
23:40
Speaker 1: crying and yelling, and she kept telling the sheriff's officers
23:43
Speaker 1: that responded she didn't want that son of a bitch
23:46
Speaker 1: doctor touching her husband. And she kept saying this over
23:50
Speaker 1: and over. The sheriff's officers were like, what doctor are
23:54
Speaker 1: you talking about? And she pointed out her window towards
23:57
Speaker 1: my house, and one of the sheriffs officers looked over
24:01
Speaker 1: and noticed sitting in my driveway my car. At that time.
24:06
Speaker 1: I had a very distinctive blue Mustang that I drove
24:09
Speaker 1: all the time, and all the officers knew about it.
24:12
Speaker 1: I didn't take it to the airport when I left
24:15
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons. And when the sheriff's officers saw that car,
24:19
Speaker 1: they knew who that son of a bitch doctor was.
24:21
Speaker 1: It was me. And then they both thought, wait, this
24:25
Speaker 1: is the crazy neighbor. The doctor Crowns is always talking
24:28
Speaker 1: about the one who shot at him and the one
24:31
Speaker 1: who does all those other crazy things. And while they
24:34
Speaker 1: were taking their notes, the neighbor's wife alleged that I
24:38
Speaker 1: had something to do with his death, and that created
24:41
Speaker 1: the issue with the manner of death. They had to
24:43
Speaker 1: rule out a homicide. A suicide in which two gunshot
24:47
Speaker 1: wounds of the head occur is unusual. In the US,
24:51
Speaker 1: twenty thousand people die each year from gunshot wounds to
24:54
Speaker 1: the head. There's a five percent survival with these, and
24:58
Speaker 1: three percent of those people have a good call of life.
25:01
Speaker 1: There are a few factors that come into play that
25:03
Speaker 1: determine if a person can have purposeful movement after they're
25:06
Speaker 1: shot in the head. A low speed, small bullet will
25:10
Speaker 1: fracture the skull but lose most of its energy doing that,
25:14
Speaker 1: and the resultant damage is just along the wound track.
25:18
Speaker 1: A high velocity bullet, on the other hand, can cause
25:21
Speaker 1: a massive wound track with a pressure wave and results
25:25
Speaker 1: in significant damage and it almost always kills the individual.
25:29
Speaker 1: It's really truly about the velocity, so as always speed kills. Also,
25:35
Speaker 1: if you just damage one side of your brain, the
25:38
Speaker 1: other side of the brain can be still functioning and
25:40
Speaker 1: take over and you'll survive at least for a little while,
25:44
Speaker 1: depending on how much hemorrhage there is, so it can
25:47
Speaker 1: occur you can shoot yourself more than once in the
25:50
Speaker 1: head and still be able to move around and pull
25:53
Speaker 1: the trigger again, or even survive. When I saw my
25:57
Speaker 1: boss later that morning, questioned me about my whereabouts on
26:01
Speaker 1: Sunday and Monday, and I told them, well, you know
26:05
Speaker 1: where I was at. I was in Chicago testifying. And
26:08
Speaker 1: my boss said it would be in my best interests
26:10
Speaker 1: to have an alibi stating where I was at on
26:13
Speaker 1: Sunday and Monday. And I said, well, wait a second,
26:17
Speaker 1: am I being blamed for something? And my boss emphasized
26:21
Speaker 1: saying it would just be best if I could prove
26:24
Speaker 1: my whereabouts on that Sunday evening, due to the allegations
26:27
Speaker 1: that were being made, I called the lawyers in Chicago
26:30
Speaker 1: and I told them my situation and how I needed
26:32
Speaker 1: a certified letter from them verifying that I had been
26:35
Speaker 1: there on Sunday and Monday. And the lawyer said to me, well,
26:39
Speaker 1: that's highly unusual, doctor, what kind of place are you
26:42
Speaker 1: working in. But if that's what you need, well we
26:45
Speaker 1: can provide you with one, and they did. They sent
26:48
Speaker 1: me a letter by overnight mail, and it was fancy.
26:51
Speaker 1: It was unofficial Cook County stationery. And I took that
26:54
Speaker 1: letter and I gave it to my boss, who showed
26:56
Speaker 1: it to the sheriff's officers that were investigating the death.
26:58
Speaker 1: And I was able to prove I wasn't there when
27:01
Speaker 1: my neighbor killed himself, And eventually the investigation showed that
27:05
Speaker 1: he had shot himself twice. I mean, it was two
27:08
Speaker 1: contract range wounds, and the gun was at the scene
27:11
Speaker 1: with two fired casings still in the gun. And it
27:14
Speaker 1: turned out he had been making suicidal gestures to his wife,
27:18
Speaker 1: to the point that his wife had taken away all
27:20
Speaker 1: of his guns, but she had kept hers because it
27:24
Speaker 1: is Texas, and the gun he used was one of hers,
27:28
Speaker 1: and it was a small caliber, low velocity firearm, so
27:31
Speaker 1: it made sense why he was able to shoot himself twice.
27:35
Speaker 1: The cause of deaths was made gun shot wounds of
27:38
Speaker 1: the head, manner of death's suicide case closed. And what
27:42
Speaker 1: was on that towel you ask, Well, she had walked
27:46
Speaker 1: down to the scene and was noticed by the people
27:48
Speaker 1: who lived in the house to be cleaning up the
27:51
Speaker 1: area where her husband had shot himself, So what was
27:54
Speaker 1: on that towel was probably some of his remains. About
27:58
Speaker 1: a year after the incident, we moved away and new
28:01
Speaker 1: neighbors came in and things returned to normal, and eventually
28:05
Speaker 1: we moved away as well, and now we have new
28:07
Speaker 1: neighbors too, and that whole incident has just become a distant,
28:14
Speaker 1: bizarre memory. And that brings us to the end of
28:20
Speaker 1: the episode. I hope you learned something like the call
28:24
Speaker 1: is coming from inside the house sort of. I hope
28:27
Speaker 1: you were entertained until the next time.